Mobile multimedia-challenges and opportunities

Today, we observe the creation of an increasing number of multimedia consumer devices for mobile and home use. This includes set-top-boxes, game consoles, personal digital assistants (PDA), e-books, but also mobile phones. Although these devices have many things in common with desktop PCs-above all Internet access-it is widely accepted that they will serve a different purpose. Many committees and companies are currently trying to define the open application platform for tomorrow's consumer terminals for home use, among others the so-called Multimedia Home Platform (MHP) of the European Digital Video Broadcasting (DVE) project. Meanwhile, on the cellular end of the multimedia business, portable appliances like cellular phones, e-books and PDAs are evolving to multimedia terminals, starting from narrow band Internet services like the Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) and slowly adopting video technologies. One of the main obstacles to overcome is bandwidth limitation-even for 3G mobile systems-and broadcast technology is considered to be a serious candidate to fill this gap, both for TV and data services. A special challenge is to provide multimedia services in vehicles, where, due to the static environment relative to the driver, some requirements for mobile and static terminals apply at the same time. This paper summarizes some trends and opportunities of mobile multimedia-especially in the DVB and GSM (Global System for Mobile communications) domain, while outlining the different requirements for mobile, home and car use of multimedia services.